Use a united front with your kids. Stop letting them play you against each other.
The Two Co-Pilots
Your kids are brilliant, curious passengers on an airplane. You and your partner are the co-pilots. When a child asks one pilot for permission and is told “no,” their next move is to go ask the other pilot. If the second pilot says “yes,” it creates chaos in the cockpit and the passengers learn that the pilots are not on the same page. A united front is the private, pre-flight briefing where the two pilots agree on the rules, so that when the passengers ask, they get the exact same calm, unified, and confident answer from both pilots, every single time.
Stop complaining about your partner to your friends. Do address the issue with your partner directly.
The Leaky Pipe
Complaining to your friends about a problem in your relationship is like discovering a leaky pipe in your house and then just calling your friends to tell them how wet your floor is getting. They might be sympathetic, they might offer you a mop, but they cannot fix the pipe. The only person who can help you fix the pipe is the other person who lives in the house with you. You have to stop talking about the puddle and start talking to your partner about the plumbing.
Stop letting your friends and family have a vote in your relationship decisions. Do make your own choices as a couple.
The Board of Directors
Your marriage is a private company, and you and your partner are the only two members of the board of directors. Your friends and family are your beloved and trusted consultants. It is wise to listen to their advice, to consider their perspective, and to value their input. But at the end of the day, a consultant does not get a vote. The final decision must always be made by the only two people on the board, behind the closed doors of the boardroom of your marriage.
The #1 secret for dealing with a partner’s annoying friend is to find one small thing you can appreciate about them.
The Treasure Hunt
When you have to spend time with your partner’s annoying friend, it can feel like you are being forced to explore a barren, miserable island. Your natural instinct is to just complain about how terrible the island is. A better approach is to turn it into a treasure hunt. Your one and only mission is to find one single, small, shiny gold coin on that entire island—one genuinely interesting story, one small act of kindness, one shared interest. Finding that one coin can change your entire perspective on the island.
I’m just going to say it: You don’t have to like all of your partner’s family members, but you do have to be respectful.
The Foreign Dignitary
When you are interacting with your partner’s family, you are a foreign dignitary, visiting another sovereign nation. You do not have to personally like all of their customs or agree with all of their laws. You are not there to become a citizen of their country. Your job is to be a respectful ambassador of your own nation (your marriage). You must be polite, you must be gracious, and you must honor their traditions while you are in their home. It is a matter of diplomacy, not of personal preference.
The reason your partner’s family drives you crazy is because your partner hasn’t set firm boundaries with them.
The Guard at the Gate
Your marriage is a beautiful, private castle that you and your partner have built together. A boundary-less family is like a family that believes they have a master key and can just wander into your castle at any time. The reason they are driving you crazy is because the person who is supposed to be the guard at the gate—your partner—is the one who is leaving the gate unlocked and wide open. The problem is not the invaders; the problem is the guard who has not done their job of protecting the castle’s borders.
If you’re still letting your mother-in-law criticize your parenting, you’re losing your authority.
The Two Captains of the Ship
You and your partner are the only two captains of the ship of your family. Your mother-in-law might be a very experienced and wise admiral, but she is not the captain of your ship. If you allow the admiral to stand on the bridge and to openly criticize your navigational choices in front of your crew (your kids), it will cause a mutiny. The crew will no longer trust their captains. You must, as a unified team, politely but firmly tell the admiral that while you respect her experience, you are the only two people who are allowed to steer this ship.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about in-laws is that you have to treat them like your own parents; you don’t.
The Friendly Neighbor
You are not obligated to have the same deep, complex, and emotionally intimate relationship with your in-laws that you have with your own parents. You are not their child. A healthier and more realistic model is that of the friendly, respectful neighbor. You are kind, you are helpful, you bring them their mail when they are out of town, and you have pleasant conversations over the fence. But you do not have a key to their house, and they do not have a key to yours.
I wish I knew that my primary loyalty shifted to my spouse after marriage, not my parents, when I was a newlywed.
The Two Nations
When you get married, you are an ambassador who is seceding from your country of origin (your family) to form a brand new, sovereign nation with your spouse. Your primary loyalty, your deepest allegiance, must now be to your new nation of two people. You are still a fond and respectful ally of your original country, but if there is a border dispute, you must, without hesitation, side with your new co-leader. I wish I had known that my passport changed on my wedding day.
99% of couples make this one mistake during the holidays: they try to visit everyone and end up exhausted and resentful.
The Two-Week Tour
Trying to visit every single family member during the holidays is like being a rock band that has booked a grueling, twenty-city tour in two weeks. You are constantly packing, unpacking, driving, and performing. You are so exhausted and stressed out by the logistics of the tour that you have no energy left to actually enjoy the music. You will end the tour exhausted, resentful, and in desperate need of a vacation from your vacation. You have to be willing to book fewer, more enjoyable gigs.
This one small habit of creating your own family traditions will change your holidays forever.
The New Recipe
When you get married, you are combining the ingredients of two different family recipe books for the holidays. Trying to cook from both books at the same time will only create a chaotic and unsatisfying meal. The key is to take the best ingredients from both of your old family recipes and to create a brand new, unique, and delicious recipe that is all your own. Creating your own traditions is the act of writing your own family’s unique and special holiday recipe book, together.
Use a “we” decision-making process for social invitations. Stop committing your partner without asking them first.
The Two Co-Signers
Your time as a couple is a joint bank account. You are both co-signers on that account. Committing your partner to a social event without asking them first is like writing a big check from that joint account without getting their signature. It is a disrespectful and unilateral withdrawal of a shared and finite resource. Before you sign any checks, you must have a quick meeting with your business partner to ensure you both agree that this is a wise expenditure of your valuable, shared capital.
Stop over-committing to social events. Do protect your time as a couple and a family.
The Castle Under Siege
Your time as a family is a beautiful, peaceful castle. The endless demands of the social world—the birthday parties, the dinners, the school events—are the armies that are constantly trying to breach your castle walls. If you say “yes” to every single request, your castle will be in a permanent state of being overrun. You will have no peace. You must become the wise king and queen who know when to pull up the drawbridge, to lock the gate, and to declare a quiet, peaceful, and protected day for the royal family.
Stop making your partner your only friend. Do cultivate your own friendships to be a more well-rounded person.
The Single Pillar
Making your partner your one and only source of social connection and emotional support is like trying to build a massive roof on top of a single, solitary pillar. It is an impossible and unsustainable amount of weight for one pillar to bear. It will eventually crack. A healthy, resilient social life is a roof that is held up by many strong pillars. Your partner is the central, most important pillar, but it must be supported by the other essential pillars of your own, separate friendships.
The #1 hack for a healthy social life as a couple is to have “couple friends,” “his friends,” and “her friends.”
The Three Gardens
A healthy social life is like a beautiful estate with three different, magnificent gardens. There is the beautiful, shared garden that you cultivate together with your “couple friends.” But there must also be your own, separate, private garden that you tend to with your own friends, and a separate, private garden that your partner tends to with theirs. A truly vibrant and healthy estate has all three. It honors your shared life, but it also honors your beautiful, individual, and separate inner worlds.
I’m just going to say it: It is perfectly healthy to have friends of the sex you’re attracted to, as long as there are clear boundaries.
The House with a Fence
A friendship with a person you could be attracted to is a beautiful house that is located right next to the house of your marriage. It is perfectly okay to be friends with your neighbor. But for that friendship to be healthy, there must be a very clear, strong, and well-maintained fence between the two properties. There must be no secret, hidden gates. As long as the fence of your boundaries is respected by both of you, the two houses can exist, beautifully and peacefully, side-by-side.
The reason your partner is jealous of your friend is because the emotional intimacy in that friendship is crossing a boundary.
The Leaky Pipe
The emotional intimacy of your marriage is the water that is supposed to be flowing through the pipes of your own house. When you start sharing your deepest fears, frustrations, and dreams with a friend instead of your partner, you have created a small, secret leak in your own plumbing. You are now diverting your own precious water supply to your neighbor’s house. Your partner is not jealous of the pipe; they are reacting to the fact that when they turn on the faucet in their own house, only a trickle is coming out.
If you’re still hiding texts or meetings with a friend from your partner, you’re losing their trust.
The Secret Room
A healthy relationship is a house where your partner is welcome in every room. When you start hiding your communication with a friend, you are building a new, secret, and sound-proof room in the basement of your house, and you are not giving your partner the key. The act of hiding is the act of building that secret room. It doesn’t even matter what you are doing in there. The fact that you have created a part of your life that is off-limits to your partner is the betrayal itself.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about friendships is that they should take a backseat to your romantic relationship; they are both vital.
The Two Lungs
A romantic partnership and your friendships are the two lungs of your social life. The lie is that you should only breathe with your “relationship” lung, and that your “friendship” lung is secondary. But if you only use one lung, you will be constantly out of breath and you will not be healthy. You need both lungs, working together, to have a vibrant, oxygenated, and joyful life. Your friendships do not compete with your partnership; they are the other essential lung that allows you to breathe fully.
I wish I knew that having strong friendships made me a better, less needy partner when I was in my 20s.
The Leaky Bucket
When I was younger, I thought my partner should be my everything. I was a leaky bucket, constantly needing them to pour their water of attention and support into me to keep me full. It was an exhausting and impossible task for them. I wish I had known that my friends were other, beautiful sources of water. By filling my own bucket from the wells of my friendships, I was able to come to my partner not as a needy, empty bucket, but as a full one, with an abundance of water to share.
99% of parents make this one mistake with their social life: they think it has to disappear for 18 years.
The Long Winter
When you have children, it can feel like a long, dark winter has descended upon your social life. It’s easy to just hibernate in your house for the next 18 years, waiting for the spring of the empty nest. But this is a mistake. You cannot survive a winter without food. You have to make the effort to put on your boots, to brave the cold, and to go out and find the social nourishment you need to survive. It will not be as easy as it was in the summer, but it is essential for your survival.
This one small habit of having a regular “couples night out” with friends will change your social connection.
The Oasis in the Desert
The daily life of parenting can be a long, dry, and exhausting desert. A regular, scheduled night out with your couple friends is a beautiful, life-giving oasis in the middle of that desert. It is a planned destination on your map where you know, without a doubt, that you will find cool water, laughter, and adult conversation. It is the predictable, reliable source of refreshment that will give you the energy you need to continue your long, and sometimes difficult, journey through the desert of modern parenthood.
Use a babysitting co-op with other families. Stop thinking you have to pay for a sitter every time.
The Barter System
A babysitting co-op is a beautiful, modern-day barter system. It is a community of people who have decided to stop trading their money for freedom, and to start trading their time. You are not buying a service; you are participating in a reciprocal exchange of a shared resource. I will watch your kids this Friday so you can have a date night, and you will watch mine next Saturday. It is a system that is built on trust, on community, and on the shared understanding that we are all in this together.
Stop letting your kids’ activities dictate your entire schedule. Do make time for your own adult social life.
The CEO of the Corporation
Your family is a corporation, and you are the CEO. Your kids’ activities are an important and valuable department within that corporation. But a good CEO does not spend all of their time in one single department. A good CEO knows that they also have to spend time on research and development (your hobbies), on investor relations (your friendships), and on board meetings (your marriage). You must manage the entire corporation, not just one, albeit very loud, department.
Stop comparing your parenting style to your friends’ styles. Do be confident in your own choices as a team.
The Two Different Gardens
Your family is your own, unique, and private garden. Your friends’ family is their garden. You might both be growing beautiful flowers, but you have different soil, different sunlight, and you are growing different types of plants. To constantly be looking over the fence and to be comparing your tomato plants to their rose bushes is a futile and joyless exercise. You have to have the confidence to be the expert gardener of your own, unique plot of land, and to trust that you know what your specific plants need to thrive.
The #1 secret for a harmonious blended family is to let the biological parent be the primary disciplinarian.
The Police Officer and the Diplomat
In a blended family, the biological parent is the established, respected police officer of that household. They have a long history, and their authority is not in question. The new stepparent is the friendly, foreign diplomat. It is not the diplomat’s job to enforce the local laws. That will only be met with resentment. The diplomat’s job is to build relationships, to be a supportive presence, and to be an ally to the local police force. The officer handles the discipline; the diplomat handles the relationship.
I’m just going to say it: You need to have consistent rules in both households for a blended family to thrive.
The Two Different Countries with an Open Border
A blended family is like two different countries that have a completely open border, and the kids are the citizens who have to live in both. If one country drives on the left side of the road and the other drives on the right, it will be chaotic, stressful, and dangerous for the citizens who have to cross that border every week. For the system to work, the leaders of the two countries must have a diplomatic summit and agree on a consistent, shared set of traffic laws.
The reason your step-kids don’t respect you is because you’re trying to act like their parent instead of a supportive mentor.
The New Coach
When a new coach comes in to take over a team that already has a beloved, long-time coach, the players will not respect them if they try to immediately act like they are the new boss. The new coach will only earn the players’ respect by being a supportive, helpful, and knowledgeable assistant coach first. A stepparent is that new coach. You are not there to replace the head coach. You are there to be a new, positive, and supportive voice on the team.
If you’re still letting your ex-spouse’s drama affect your new relationship, you’re losing your peace.
The Leaky Pipe from the Upstairs Apartment
The drama from an ex-spouse is like a leaky pipe in the apartment directly above yours. Even though it is not your pipe, and it is not your apartment, the dirty water is still dripping through your ceiling and ruining your furniture. You cannot ignore it. You and your partner must become a unified team. You must go upstairs together, and you must insist that the owner of that apartment (your partner) fix their own damn leak, so you can have a dry and peaceful home.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about co-parenting is that you have to be friends with your ex; you just have to be business-like and respectful.
The Two Co-Workers
You and your ex are the two co-workers who have been assigned to a very long and important project: raising your child. You do not have to be friends. You do not have to go out for drinks after work. You just have to be professional, respectful, and effective colleagues. You have to be able to show up for the meetings, to communicate clearly about the project, and to never, ever speak badly about your co-worker in front of the client (your child).
I wish I knew that a parallel parenting model was a valid option when co-parenting with a difficult ex.
The Two Separate Offices
Co-parenting is like two business partners who are trying to share one small office. If the partners are respectful and cooperative, it can work. But if they are in high conflict, they will just spend all day fighting. Parallel parenting is the wise decision to move into two separate, private offices on the same floor. You are no longer trying to work in the same space. You communicate only when necessary, through email, and you work in parallel, which dramatically reduces the conflict and allows you to both get your work done.
99% of couples make this one mistake when introducing a new partner to their kids: they do it too soon.
The New Character in the TV Show
Your children’s life is a long-running TV show, and they are the main stars. When you introduce a new partner, you are introducing a new, major character into their show. If you do this too soon, before the audience has had a chance to get used to the idea, and before you are even sure if this new character will be around for more than one episode, it is jarring and disruptive to the story. You must wait until you are confident that this new character is going to be a series regular before you write them into the script.
This one small action of putting your kids’ emotional security first will change the transition for everyone.
The North Star
When you are navigating the complex and emotionally charged waters of introducing a new partner, it is easy to get lost. There are so many competing needs and desires. Your children’s emotional security must be your unchangeable, unshakeable North Star. Every single decision you make—about timing, about boundaries, about expectations—must be made while you are looking at that one, single, guiding light. If you always navigate by that star, you will not get lost.
Use a weekly family meeting to discuss schedules, chores, and issues. Stop letting things fester.
The Company’s Weekly Staff Meeting
A family is a small, chaotic, and beautiful company. A weekly family meeting is the all-hands staff meeting. It is the one, single time in the week where all the employees get in the same room to look at the quarterly goals (the family schedule), to discuss the ongoing projects (the chores), and to address any inter-departmental conflicts. It is the essential communication hub that stops the small problems from festering in the dark and from turning into big, company-destroying crises.
Stop complaining to your kids about your partner. Do keep them out of your marital issues.
The Two Arguing Pilots
Complaining to your child about your partner is like one of the pilots of an airplane getting on the intercom and telling all the passengers how incompetent the other pilot is. This does not make the passengers feel safe. It creates terror. It makes them feel like the plane is in the hands of a fool and that they are all about to crash. Your marital issues belong in the cockpit, behind a closed and sound-proof door. The passengers should only ever hear the calm, unified, and confident voice of their flight crew.
Stop badmouthing your ex in front of your kids. Do realize you are criticizing half of their DNA.
The Two Halves of a Recipe
Your child is a beautiful, unique cake that has been made from two different, but equally important, recipes—yours and your ex’s. When you criticize your ex in front of your child, you are telling them that half of the ingredients that they are made of are rotten and disgusting. You are telling them that half of them is bad. You are forcing them to reject a fundamental part of their own being. You can hate the other recipe, but you must always honor the beautiful, innocent cake that you made together.
The #1 hack for a family vacation that is actually relaxing is to lower your expectations.
The Perfect Movie vs. The Real Life
Your expectation for your family vacation is a perfect, sun-drenched, Hollywood movie where everyone is always smiling and laughing. The reality of your family vacation will be a messy, unpredictable, and sometimes chaotic documentary with some beautiful scenes, but also with some meltdowns, some arguments, and some boring parts. The gap between the perfect movie in your head and the messy reality is the source of all your stress. If you can lower your expectations and just embrace the documentary, you might actually be able to relax.
I’m just going to say it: Your family vacation is probably too structured and not what your kids actually want.
The Forced March
A hyper-scheduled family vacation is a forced march. You are the drill sergeant, barking out a minute-by-minute itinerary of museums, historical sites, and educational activities. Your kids are the exhausted, resentful soldiers who are just being dragged along. What they probably want is not another structured lesson; what they want is some unstructured playtime. They want you to trade your drill sergeant’s whistle for a frisbee, and to just spend a few hours of unplanned, unscheduled, and joyful time with them in a park.
The reason your family get-togethers are so tense is because no one is willing to address the elephant in the room.
The Elephant in the Room
A tense family gathering is like a small, hot room where a giant, and very real, elephant is also living. Everyone in the room can see the elephant, they can smell the elephant, and they are all having to contort their bodies in uncomfortable ways to avoid bumping into it. But everyone has silently agreed to pretend that the elephant is not there. The tension you feel is the immense, collective, and exhausting effort of fifty people trying to ignore a two-ton mammal in a tiny room.
If you’re still letting a toxic family member ruin your holidays, you’re losing your joy by choice.
The Poison in the Punch Bowl
A toxic family member is the person who, every single year, shows up to your beautiful holiday party and pours a small, but potent, vial of poison into the punch bowl. You know they are going to do it. They have done it every year. To keep inviting them, and to then be shocked and upset when the punch is once again poisoned, is no longer their fault; it is yours. You are choosing to drink the poison. The only way to have a joyful party is to finally have the courage to not invite the person with the poison.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about family is that “blood is thicker than water”; healthy relationships are more important than genetics.
The Poisonous Plant
The family you are born into is the garden you are planted in. But sometimes, a plant in that garden is poisonous. Just because you share the same genetic soil does not mean you are obligated to let that plant’s poison seep into your roots and make you sick. The original, and often misunderstood, saying is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” The bonds you have chosen (your covenants) are more important than the ones you were born into. You can choose to transplant yourself into a healthier garden.
I wish I knew that it was okay to create a “chosen family” of supportive friends when I was a young adult.
The Life Raft
Sometimes, the family you are born into is a sinking ship. It is not a safe or a healthy place to be. I wish I had known that it is okay to not go down with that ship. It is okay to find a life raft. Your “chosen family” of supportive, loving friends is that life raft. It is the small, but sturdy, vessel that can save you from the cold water and can carry you safely to a new and healthier shore. You are allowed to save yourself.
99% of people make this one mistake when a friend doesn’t like their partner: they dismiss their friend’s concerns.
The Smoke Detector
A good, trusted friend who has known you for years is a highly sensitive smoke detector for your life. When you bring a new partner around, and that smoke detector starts to beep, you must not just dismiss it as a faulty alarm. Your friend can often smell a faint, subtle whiff of a toxic smoke that you, in your love-struck state, cannot. You don’t have to believe them immediately, but you must, for your own safety, go and investigate the source of the smoke.
This one small action of listening to your friends’ concerns with an open mind will change your valuable perspective.
The View from the Balcony
When you are in a new relationship, you are on the dance floor. You are in the middle of the music, the lights, and the intoxicating energy of the moment. You cannot see the whole picture. Your trusted friend is standing on the balcony, overlooking the dance floor. They have a clear, elevated, and objective perspective that you do not have. Listening to their concerns is the wise act of pausing for a moment and asking your friend on the balcony, “How does it look from up there?”
Use a double date to get to know your partner’s friends. Stop just hearing stories about them.
The Movie vs. The Movie Review
Hearing your partner’s stories about their friends is like reading a movie review. You get the basic plot, and you get your partner’s opinion, but you haven’t actually seen the movie. Going on a double date is the act of sitting down and watching the movie for yourself. You get to see the real characters, you get to hear the real dialogue, and you get to form your own, unedited opinion about whether or not it’s a film you would ever want to see again.
Stop trying to force a friendship between your best friend and your partner. Do let it happen naturally, or not at all.
The Two Different Plants
Your best friend and your partner are two very different, and very beautiful, plants that have been thriving in two separate pots. When you try to force them to be friends, you are trying to uproot them both and to jam them into one single, small pot. It is an unnatural and stressful process that will likely cause both plants to wilt. The best you can do is to place their two pots next to each other, in the same warm, sunny spot, and to let their leaves and branches intertwine naturally, if they choose to.
Stop making your partner choose between you and their friends. Do encourage them to maintain those important bonds.
The Two Lungs
A romantic partnership and your friendships are the two lungs of your social and emotional life. Making your partner choose between you and their friends is like telling them that they are only allowed to breathe with one lung from now on. It is a cruel and suffocating act that will only leave them gasping for air. A healthy partner knows that for the whole body to be healthy, both lungs must be strong, and both must be allowed to breathe fully.
The #1 secret for a relationship that is well-integrated into your social circle is for both partners to make an effort with each other’s friends.
The Two Ambassadors
When you enter a relationship, you each become the official ambassador to the foreign country of your own friend group. A successful integration requires that both ambassadors do their job. You must make the effort to introduce your partner to your country’s customs and to its citizens. And your partner must make the effort to learn a few words of the local language and to be a respectful visitor. A relationship will only be socially integrated when both ambassadors are good at their job.
I’m just going to say it: You’re probably a different person around your friends than you are with your partner, and they notice.
The Two Different Hats
We all wear different hats in different situations. You wear your “professional” hat at work, and you wear your “son or daughter” hat with your parents. It’s possible you are wearing your “cool, funny friend” hat with your buddies, and a more serious, “responsible partner” hat at home. The problem is when those two hats are so dramatically different that it feels like you are two completely different people. Your partner will start to wonder which hat represents the real you, and which one is just a costume.
The reason your partner feels uncomfortable around your friends is because you don’t include them in the conversation.
The Foreign Country
When you bring your partner into your long-standing friend group, you are bringing them into a foreign country where you are the only person who speaks the language. When you start telling a bunch of old inside jokes, you are speaking a rapid, fluent dialect of that language that your partner cannot understand. They will feel isolated, confused, and unwelcome. To make them feel comfortable, you must consciously slow down and act as their personal translator, taking the time to explain the local customs and the meaning behind the strange words.
If you’re still telling inside jokes that your partner doesn’t understand, you’re losing their sense of belonging.
The Secret Clubhouse
An inside joke is a secret password that gets you into the exclusive clubhouse of a shared memory. When you use that password in front of your partner, and they don’t know it, you are not just telling a joke. You are actively and loudly reminding them that they are not a member of your secret club. You are standing on the other side of a locked door that they cannot enter. It is a small, but powerful, act of exclusion.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about a social life as a couple is that you have to do everything together.
The Tandem Bicycle
The lie is that a couple’s social life should be a tandem bicycle, where you are always pedaling in the exact same direction, at the exact same time. But a healthy social life is actually two separate, awesome bicycles. You often love to ride them side-by-side, on the same path. But you also have the freedom to sometimes take your own bike on a solo adventure, or to go on a ride with just your friends. You are two whole, independent riders, not two halves of a single, wobbly machine.
I wish I knew that having a “guys’ night” or “girls’ night” was essential for our relationship’s health when I was a newlywed.
The Two Separate Gardens
When I first got married, I thought we had to plant everything in one, single, shared garden. I wish I had known that a healthy estate has multiple gardens. Our relationship is the beautiful, main garden that we tend to together. But it is also essential for me to have my own, separate garden that I cultivate with my own friends, where I can grow things that might not thrive in our shared soil. Tending to my own garden does not take away from our shared one; it just makes me a happier and more well-rounded gardener.
99% of couples make this one mistake when they move to a new city: they wait for friendships to happen to them.
The Empty Garden
Moving to a new city is like being given a barren, empty plot of land. Friendships are the seeds that will turn that empty plot into a beautiful, vibrant garden. But seeds will not magically fly in on the wind and plant themselves. You have to be the proactive gardener. You have to go out, you have to buy the seeds (join the clubs, go to the events), you have to plant them, and you have to water them with your attention. A garden will not grow if you just sit on your porch and wait.
This one small habit of saying “yes” to invitations, even when you’re tired, will build your new social circle.
The Small Sparks
Building a new social circle is like trying to start a fire in the rain. Your first few attempts will likely fizzle out. It’s easy to get discouraged and to just go back inside where it’s warm. But you have to keep trying. Every invitation you say “yes” to, even when you don’t feel like it, is another strike of the match. Most will not catch. But eventually, one of those small, difficult sparks will ignite a piece of kindling, which will then ignite a log, which will then become the warm, roaring fire of a new community.
Use a shared hobby to meet other couples. Stop just trying to turn work colleagues into friends.
The Fishing Spot
Trying to build your entire social life out of your work colleagues is like deciding to only ever fish in the small, and sometimes toxic, pond that is right behind your office. There might be a few good fish in there, but the selection is limited. A shared hobby—a sports league, a cooking class, a book club—is like discovering a massive, beautiful, and pristine lake that is full of thousands of new and interesting fish who have already pre-selected themselves as being interested in the same things you are.
Stop letting your social anxiety prevent you from having a social life. Do take small, manageable steps to get out more.
The Shallow End of the Pool
Social anxiety can make a party feel like the deep, terrifying end of an Olympic swimming pool, and you have been told to just jump in. It’s overwhelming. A better approach is to just focus on the shallow end. You don’t have to jump into the deep end. Just make a small, manageable goal of putting your feet in the shallow water for ten minutes. The small, successful step of just showing up and then leaving when you need to is what will slowly build the confidence you need to eventually swim a full lap.
Stop being a social chameleon to fit in. Do be your authentic self to attract genuine friends.
The Bait
Being a social chameleon is like using a generic, uninteresting piece of plastic as bait when you are fishing. You might be able to trick a few, small, un-discerning fish into biting. But if you want to attract a specific, magnificent, and interesting type of fish, you have to be willing to use the real, authentic, and maybe even a little bit weird bait that that specific fish is actually looking for. You will attract fewer fish, but they will be the right ones.
The #1 hack for a dinner party that is actually fun for the hosts is to make it a potluck.
The Restaurant vs. The Barn Raising
Hosting a traditional dinner party is like trying to be the sole owner, chef, and waiter of a fancy restaurant for one night. It is a stressful, exhausting, and high-pressure performance. A potluck is a barn raising. It is a joyful, collaborative, and low-pressure community event. Everyone brings their own unique dish, everyone helps with the construction, and the focus is not on the perfect performance of the host, but on the beautiful, shared creation of the community.
I’m just going to say it: You’re probably spending too much time with other couples who complain about their relationships.
The Second-Hand Smoke
Being around a lot of negative, complaining couples is like being a non-smoker who is sitting in a smoky, poorly-ventilated room. Even if you are not smoking yourself, you will inevitably inhale the toxic, second-hand smoke of their negativity and cynicism. It will get into your clothes, and it will start to damage your own healthy lungs. You have to be willing to leave the smoky room and to go find a group of friends who are breathing clean, fresh air.
The reason you’re so negative about your relationship is because you’re in a social circle that normalizes negativity.
The Echo Chamber
Your social circle is an echo chamber. If you are surrounded by people who constantly complain about their partners and who normalize disrespect and unhappiness, that negative echo will start to sound like the truth. You will start to see your own, normal relationship challenges through that same, cynical lens. To change your perspective, you have to consciously step out of that negative echo chamber and into a new one, one that is filled with the positive, supportive echoes of people who admire and respect their partners.
If you’re still sharing the intimate details of your sex life with your friends, you’re betraying your partner’s privacy.
The Locked Diary
The intimacy of your relationship is a private, sacred diary that you are co-authoring with your partner. Sharing the specific, intimate details of that diary with your friends, without your partner’s consent, is a profound betrayal. You are taking the most vulnerable, private chapters of your shared story and you are reading them out loud in the town square. A healthy friendship will respect the locked cover of that diary. They will not ask you to read from it.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about a good friend is that they will always support you; a true friend will also challenge you.
The Cheerleader vs. The Coach
A good friend is a cheerleader. They are always on the sidelines, cheering for you, no matter what. This feels good. But a true friend is also a great coach. A great coach does not just cheer. They are the person who has the courage to pull you aside, to tell you the hard truth, to point out the flaw in your technique, and to challenge you to be a better player. They are not doing this to be mean; they are doing it because they believe in your potential to be a champion.
I wish I knew that a true friend would tell me the hard truth about my relationship, even if it was difficult to hear.
The Honest Mirror
I used to think that a good friend was someone who would always agree with me and take my side. I wanted a cheerleader. I wish I had known that a true friend is an honest mirror. They are the person who will lovingly, but clearly, reflect back to you the truth that you are not able to see in yourself. They will show you the smudge of your own bad behavior on your nose. It might be uncomfortable to see, but it is a profound act of love.
99% of people make this one mistake when they become parents: they stop making time for their childless friends.
The Two Different Countries
When you become a parent, it’s like you have emigrated to a new, and very demanding, country called “Parentland.” Your childless friends are still living in their own, different country. The mistake is to completely pull up your passport and to never visit your old friends again. You have to make the effort to cross the border, to visit their country, and to talk about things other than the strange customs of your new home. It is the only way to maintain your foreign relations.
This one small action of scheduling a regular phone call with a long-distance friend will change your sense of connection.
The Shared Campfire
A long-distance friendship can feel like two people who are living in two separate, dark, and lonely forests. A scheduled, regular phone call is the act of agreeing to build your two separate campfires at the exact same time, every week. For that one hour, you are not alone. You are sharing a synchronous experience of light and warmth. It is a small ritual that creates a powerful, and reliable, sense of connection across any distance.
Use your friendships as a source of support. Stop using them as a place to bash your partner.
The Construction Site vs. The Demolition Site
A healthy friendship is a construction site. It is the place you go to get the support, the tools, and the encouragement you need to go back and to build a better, stronger relationship. An unhealthy friendship is a demolition site. It is the place you go to get the sledgehammers and the dynamite you need to tear your partner down. One is a place of construction; the other is a place of destruction. Be sure you know which site you are on.
Stop letting your family’s expectations dictate your life choices as a couple. Do create a life that is authentic to you.
The Inherited Blueprint
Your family’s expectations are the old, inherited blueprint for the house they think you should build. You can spend your whole life trying to build their house, with their floor plan, and their style of decor. But if it is not the house you and your partner actually want to live in, you will be miserable. You have to have the courage to roll up their blueprint, to thank them for it, and then to sit down with your partner and to draw your own, new, beautiful, and authentic blueprint for the one and only house you are actually going to live in.
Stop trying to live up to your parents’ version of a successful marriage. Do define success on your own terms.
The Two Different Finish Lines
Your parents’ marriage is a race that they have run, on their own track, with their own finish line. Trying to live up to their version of success is like trying to run their race. But you are not in their race. You and your partner are on your own, unique track, in a different stadium, in a different era. You must have the courage to define your own finish line, based on your own values, your own goals, and your own definition of what a winning race looks like for you.
The #1 secret for a good relationship with your adult children is to treat them like adults.
The CEO and the Intern
When your children are young, you are the CEO of their life, and they are the intern. You are the boss. But when they become adults, that dynamic must change. If you keep treating them like an intern, they will resent you. You must consciously and gracefully transition into a new role. You are no longer their boss; you are now a trusted, senior consultant. You are available for advice, but you are not in the meetings, and you do not have a vote. You have to respect the new CEO.
I’m just going to say it: You’re probably giving your adult children unsolicited advice, and they resent it.
The Backseat Driver
Giving your adult child unsolicited advice is like being the passenger in a car that they are driving, and constantly yelling at them, “You should have turned there! You’re going too fast! That’s not the right way to go!” You are being a backseat driver. It is annoying, it is disrespectful, and it communicates that you do not trust them to drive their own car. A good consultant only offers advice when the driver pulls over and asks for it.
The reason your adult children don’t call you more is because every conversation turns into a critique.
The Minefield
If every time your adult child calls you, they feel like they are walking through a verbal minefield, where any step could trigger an explosion of criticism or unsolicited advice, they will eventually stop wanting to walk through that field. They will keep the conversations short, superficial, and infrequent, because it is the only way to avoid getting blown up. If you want them to visit your land more often, you have to do the hard work of de-mining your own conversational landscape.
If you’re still giving financial “gifts” with strings attached to your married children, you’re losing their respect.
The Puppet Master
A financial “gift” that comes with a set of hidden strings of expectation and control is not a gift; it is a transaction. You are not being a generous parent; you are being a puppet master. You are using your money to try and control their choices and their lives. A true gift is given with an open hand and with no strings attached. It is an act of love, not an act of manipulation. If you want their respect, you have to be willing to let go of the strings.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about being a grandparent is that you get to spoil them; your job is to support the parents’ rules.
The Vice President
The parents are the President and the Co-President of the country of your grandchildren’s lives. They are the ones who set the laws. As a grandparent, you are the beloved, fun, and wise Vice President. Your job is not to undermine the Presidents’ laws and to create your own, secret set of rules. Your job is to support, to uphold, and to respect the laws of the land that the Presidents have established. A good Vice President is a loyal and supportive member of the administration.
I wish I knew that my role as a parent shifted from manager to consultant when my children became adults.
The Manager vs. The Consultant
When my kids were young, I was their manager. I was in charge of their schedule, their performance, and their daily tasks. It was a hands-on, directive role. I wish I had known that when they became adults, my job description changed completely. I was no longer the manager. I was now an on-call, external consultant. My job was to be available, to be wise, and to offer my opinion, but only when my client, the new CEO of their own life, specifically asked for it.
99% of grandparents make this one mistake: they don’t respect the parents’ rules on sugar and screen time.
The Secret Agent
When a grandparent secretly gives a child a cookie, after the parents have said “no,” they think they are being a fun, loving grandparent. But they are actually being a secret agent who is teaching the child that the leaders of their country (their parents) are not to be respected, and that their laws can be broken without consequence. You are not being the “fun” one; you are being the subversive agent who is undermining the entire structure of the government.
This one small action of asking “How can I best support you as parents?” will change your relationship with your children and grandchildren.
The Supportive Ally
Asking your adult children, “How can I best support you?” is a profound act of respect. It is a verbal acknowledgment that they are now the leaders, and you are now in a supporting role. It communicates that you are not there to take over, to criticize, or to do things your own way. You are there as a humble, loving, and willing member of their team, and you are reporting for duty, ready to take your instructions from the new generals.
Use your role as an elder to be a source of wisdom and love, not of judgment and control.
The Lighthouse
As an elder in a family, you have a choice. You can be the loud, annoying foghorn, constantly blaring out warnings and criticisms, trying to control the path of all the ships around you. Or, you can be the lighthouse. You can be the quiet, steady, and unwavering beacon of light and wisdom. You don’t yell at the ships. You just shine your light, and you trust that the captains of their own vessels will use your light to help them navigate their own journey safely.
Stop letting family drama consume your energy. Do learn to observe it without participating in it.
The Balcony
Family drama is the chaotic, messy, and often ridiculous play that is happening on the stage of your family’s life. Getting involved in the drama is like jumping onto the stage and becoming one of the overwrought actors. A healthier approach is to consciously choose to go and sit in the balcony. You can still watch the play, you can still care about the characters, but you are no longer a part of the performance. You are an observer, not a participant, which allows you to keep your peace.
Stop being the family peacekeeper. Do let other adults manage their own relationships.
The Un-Official Referee
Being the family peacekeeper is like being the un-official, unpaid, and un-thanked referee in a chaotic and never-ending wrestling match between two other adults. You are constantly jumping into the ring, trying to separate them, and you are the one who is always getting hit by a stray elbow. You have to be willing to let go of the whistle, to get out of the ring, and to let the two other grown adults be responsible for their own, childish match.
The #1 hack for a drama-free family gathering is to have a clear start and end time.
The Pop-Up Restaurant
A family gathering without a clear end time is a restaurant that never closes. The guests will just stay forever, and the staff (you) will become exhausted and resentful. A drama-free gathering is a pop-up restaurant. You have a clear, advertised, and non-negotiable opening time and closing time. “We’d love to have you from 1 pm to 4 pm.” This allows everyone to enjoy the meal, and it guarantees that the staff gets to clean up and to go home at a reasonable hour, which keeps the drama off the menu.
I’m just going to say it: It is perfectly okay to “fire” a toxic family member.
The Toxic Employee
A toxic family member is a toxic employee in the small business of your life. This employee is constantly creating a hostile work environment, they are lowering morale, and they are costing you a huge amount of emotional and financial resources. Just because that employee shares some DNA with the CEO does not mean you have to keep them on the payroll forever. You have the right, for the health of your own company, to sit them down and to say, with kindness but with firmness, “Your services are no longer required here.”
The reason you’re so stressed out by your family is because you have porous boundaries.
The House with No Doors
Porous boundaries are like a house with no doors and no locks. Anyone from your family can just wander in at any time, day or night. They can go through your things, they can eat your food, they can make a mess. You are so stressed out because you are living in a house with absolutely no privacy and no security. A healthy boundary is the simple, revolutionary act of installing a front door, with a lock, and of realizing that you are the only one who gets to decide who you let in.
If you’re still letting your family guilt you into doing things you don’t want to do, you’re losing your own life.
The Rented Car
Letting your family’s guilt control your life choices is like letting them be the permanent driver of your car. You are just a passenger in the back seat of your own life, being driven to destinations you do not want to go to. Every time you give in to guilt, you are handing them the keys. Taking back control of your life requires you to have the courage to get into the driver’s seat, to lock the doors, and to start steering in the direction of your own, authentic destination.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about family is that you can’t choose them; you can choose your chosen family.
The Garden You’re Planted In vs. The Garden You Cultivate
The family you are born into is the garden you are first planted in. You do not get to choose that soil. But as you grow, you have the power to also create and to cultivate your own, separate garden. Your “chosen family” of friends is that garden. You get to choose the soil, you get to choose the plants, and you get to create a healthy, nourishing, and beautiful environment that can feed you in ways that your original garden might not be able to.
I wish I knew that I could choose to have a different, more boundaried relationship with my family as an adult.
The Old Contract
When we are children, we have an unwritten contract with our family that is based on dependence and a lack of power. I wish I had known that when I became an adult, that old contract expired. I had the right, and the responsibility, to sit down and to negotiate a brand new contract for our adult relationship, one that was based on mutual respect, on healthy boundaries, and on my new status as an equal, independent adult. You do not have to keep operating under the terms of your old, childhood contract.
99% of people make this one mistake with their partner’s family: they try to win them over instead of just being themselves.
The Audition
Trying to “win over” your partner’s family is like going into every family gathering as if it were a high-stakes, and very stressful, audition for a part in their play. You are performing. You are saying the lines you think they want to hear. But it is an exhausting and inauthentic performance. A better approach is to just show up as yourself. You are not there to audition for a role. You are there as a guest in their theater, and your only job is to be a polite and authentic audience member.
This one small habit of finding common ground with one in-law will change your experience of family gatherings.
The Ally in the Foreign Land
A family gathering can feel like you are a lone ambassador, dropped into the middle of a strange, and sometimes intimidating, foreign country where you do not speak the language. It can be a very lonely experience. The simple act of finding one single person in that country who you can have a real conversation with, one person who can be your ally, can change everything. It gives you a home base. It gives you a friendly face in the crowd. It makes the foreign land feel a little less foreign, and a lot more like home.
Use your partner as your teammate and advocate with their family. Stop dealing with them on your own.
The Translator
Your partner is the only one who is a native, fluent speaker of the strange, and often confusing, language of their own family. They are the only one who understands the complex cultural nuances and the hidden, historical meanings. When you are in a conflict with their family, you must not try to negotiate in their foreign language on your own. You will fail. You must use your partner as your skilled, and hopefully loyal, translator and advocate.
Stop making assumptions about your partner’s family based on your own. Do get to know them as individuals.
The Two Different Books
Your family is a book that you have read a thousand times. You know all the characters, all the plot twists, all the hidden themes. The mistake is to assume that your partner’s family is just a different edition of your own book. It is not. It is a completely different, and unique, novel, written by a different author, in a different genre. You must have the humility to admit that you have never read this book before, and you must get to know each of their characters on their own terms.
Stop letting cultural differences be a source of conflict with your partner’s family. Do approach them with curiosity and respect.
The Foreign Exchange Student
When you are interacting with a family from a different culture, you must adopt the mindset of a curious, respectful, and humble foreign exchange student. You are not there to judge their strange food, their weird customs, or their different way of speaking. You are there to learn. You are there to be a student of their culture. This posture of respectful curiosity will transform a potential source of conflict into a beautiful and expansive opportunity for learning and for connection.
The #1 secret for a relationship that successfully blends two different cultures is to create a third culture that is unique to your family.
The Two Rivers and the New Lake
Your culture and your partner’s culture are two separate, and powerful, rivers that have been flowing for generations. The secret to a successful multicultural relationship is not to try and force one river to flow into the other. It is to allow your two, beautiful rivers to both flow into a brand new, and previously non-existent, lake. This “third culture” is the unique and beautiful body of water that you create together, that takes the best of both rivers and that creates something completely new.
I’m just going to say it: Your way of celebrating a holiday is not the only “right” way.
The Two Different Cookbooks
You and your partner have each grown up with a sacred, family cookbook that has the one and only “right” recipe for how to cook the holiday meal. The problem is, your two cookbooks have completely different recipes. You can spend your whole life fighting about which cookbook is the holy scripture. Or, you can have the creative, collaborative fun of taking the best ingredients from both of your old, sacred texts and writing a brand new, and even more delicious, holy book of your own.
The reason you’re having so many conflicts with in-laws is because you’re both operating from unstated cultural assumptions.
The Two Different Rulebooks
The conflicts you are having with your in-laws are often not about the specific issue; they are about the invisible cultural rulebook that you are each playing by. Your rulebook might say, “It is polite to be direct,” while their rulebook says, “It is polite to be indirect.” You will be in a constant state of conflict until you have the awareness to realize you are not playing the same game. You have to be willing to put your two, invisible rulebooks on the table and to have a conversation about the different rules.
If you’re still not willing to compromise on family traditions, you’re losing the chance to create beautiful new ones together.
The Two Old Trees
A family tradition is a beautiful, old tree. When you get married, you are bringing your two, separate, old trees to your new home. If you insist on only celebrating under your tree, you are missing the point. The real opportunity is not to choose between the two old trees. The real opportunity is to take a seed from each of your beautiful, old trees, and to plant them together, in the same soil, so you can watch a brand new, and even more beautiful, hybrid tree grow.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about a multicultural relationship is that it’s too difficult; it’s an opportunity for immense growth.
The Single-Language Library vs. The International Library
A relationship with someone from your own culture is like living in a beautiful library where all the books are written in a language you already know. It is comfortable and it is easy. A multicultural relationship is like being given a lifetime membership to a massive, international library, with thousands of books in languages you have never seen before. It will be more challenging, yes. But it will also be an infinitely more expansive, more interesting, and more mind-opening adventure.
I wish I knew that our cultural differences would be our greatest strength as a couple, not our biggest challenge.
The Two Different Toolboxes
I used to see our cultural differences as a problem to be solved. I saw them as two separate, and incompatible, toolboxes. I wish I had known that our differences were not a liability; they were our greatest asset. When we faced a complex problem, we didn’t just have one set of tools; we had two. Your culture gave you a hammer where mine gave me a wrench. Together, we had a much more versatile and resilient collection of tools that allowed us to fix almost anything.
99% of couples make this one mistake with their social calendar: they don’t have one, and their life is chaotic.
The Airport with No Air Traffic Control
A family’s social life without a shared calendar is like a busy airport with no air traffic control. The planes are just taking off and landing whenever they feel like it. It is a state of pure, stressful, and dangerous chaos, with constant near-misses and scheduling crashes. A shared calendar is the air traffic control tower. It is the one, central, and calm place where you can see all the arrivals and all the departures, and you can make sure that everything is flowing in a smooth, safe, and stress-free way.
This one small action of having a weekly planning session for your social life will reduce your stress levels forever.
The Weekly Flight Plan
A weekly planning session for your social life is like the pilots’ weekly meeting to create the flight plan. It is the one, single time in the week where you both sit down, look at the maps, and decide on the course for the next seven days. This one, thirty-minute meeting will save you from the seven days of constant, stressful, and in-flight re-calculations that you would have to make if you just took off with no plan at all.
Use your social and family life to enrich your relationship, not to be a constant source of stress.
The Garden vs. The Weeds
Your social and family connections are the plants in the garden of your life. When they are healthy and well-tended, they are a source of beauty, nourishment, and joy. But if you do not tend to them, if you do not set boundaries and communicate clearly, those same plants can become overgrown, invasive weeds that choke the life out of your central, most important plant—your relationship. Your social life should be the beautiful flowers that enrich your garden, not the weeds that are killing it.